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The Origins of King Arthur (Notes, Pt.5)

(The
following series of notes is to ‘The Great Course’ offering titled King Arthur: History and Legend. Taught by professor Dorsey Armstrong, the course covers close to twelve
hours of content. Each entry until the concluding of the course, will focus on
the notes I took for each of the 30-minute lessons. I share them here in hopes that other people
find them useful and informative. These
notes are slightly reworked to as to be more presentable and the information is
simply what I jotted down when listening to the lecture. Each selection of notes corresponds to a single 30-minute lesson.)

1.When considering the King
Arthur legend, we have to keep in mind some historical context; for example,
though King Arthur is often depicted as ruling from an illustrious stone
castle, and wearing a suit of shiny armor, neither would have existed during the
time in which Arthur supposedly lived. Fortifications would have been earth and
wood works, whereas armor would have been boiled leather.

2.An early medieval bard named
Merthelen (I am probably spelling that incorrectly; as I only had audio cues to
go upon, I cannot maintain the spelling for certain) was likely the inspiration
for the character we call today ‘Merlin.’ However, this figure was not linked
to Arthur for close to six-hundred years after his death.

3.Lancelot shows up not in a
British text, but a French text, and is added to the Arthurian mythos along
with the concept of the roundtable by a French writer.

4.All though debated, many
scholars do believe that an historical King Arthur existed.

5.However, we need some
historical context in order to understand the idea behind what inspired the
legend. From the end of the 4th century to the beginning of the 5th,
Britian had been Romanized and converted from the traditional Celtric
lifetyles. The Romans built Hadrian’s Wall to keep out the Picts and other
Northern and Western tribes which had not been Romanized.

6.By the year 410, those Britons
which had been part of the Roman Empire had been part of the imperium for
almost four centuries (400 years). Since Rome, at this time, had been sacked
(by the Visigoths?), all of the Roman legions deployed outside of Rome had to
be recalled to the imperial center.

7.Without the imperial Roman army
to protect them, Britian fell prey to raiding Anglo-Saxon and Norse tribes. The
6th century historian Gildas recount both the slaughter as well as a
man who helped push the invading ‘barbarian’ tribes back; two centuries later,
Bede gives us the name of this man as Vortigern; likely a local warlord who
gained some prestige, Vortigern hired mercenaries from the continent (likely
France) to fight the other invading pagan tribes. These mercenaries were led by
Hengest and Horsa.

8.While the mercenaries overcame
the other invading tribes, during the fighting they say how the native Britons
were ill-suited to defend themselves, and after emerging victorious in battle,
decided to settle the Briton’s land themselves. This was the start of the
Anglo-Saxon invasion.

9.For two generations Britain was
divided. To the East, ruled the Anglo-Saxons. To the West, ruled people who could
be described as Celtic-Romans, individuals who had reverted to a pre-Roman
lifestyle, but still embraced aspects of Roman culture and technology. It is in
this Celtic-Roman territory that we see the ‘Arthur-figure,’ the person who
would likely have been the template for the legend of King Arthur, emerge.

10.This Arthur-figure, would
obviously have been a consummate leader skilled in battle as well as charismatic.
However, because the period from 410-600 is truly a dearth of information, it
is difficult to say anything definitive about this presumed figure. (This is
the time period in which historians dub ‘The Dark Ages’) Part of this lack of
information had to do with the times: The Britons had been so focused on merely
surviving that they could hardly have given thought to writing down their
history as they were fleeing Anglo-Saxon blades. Meanwhile, the Germanic tribes
lacked a sophisticated writing system; they could record short message via rune
and a rudimentary alphabet, but not much more. So, it is only several centuries
later, with the emergence of Old English as an instructed language, that we see
written histories starting to be recorded. Unfortunately, these histories do
not mention an Arthur figure and they were written hundreds of years after they
supposedly transpired.

11.It is only with that 6th
century historian named Gildas, born around the same time as the Arthur-figure,
that we get something close to a first-hand account of the Arthur-figure. The
history goes along the lines of a figure—Ambrosis Ariainus—challenging the
pagan invaders to a battle and emerging victorious. But, as archeology attests,
during the time of this Arthur-figure’s victory, was also a transitional
generation, while lingual research suggests that his name may have actually
been a title, not a proper in in itself. This title, “rearthurmaus” likely
denoted a ‘supreme leader.’ The name “Arthur” does not show up until a couple
of generations after the period of the alleged historical figure. Researchers
have posited that the name—Arthur—may have been an attempt to either Celticize
a Roman name or to simplify a longer name or moniker.

12.In the 6th century,
all four of the Roman households in Britian had produced first born sons, and
every one of those was named Arthur, thus attesting to both the popularity of
the name as well as the belief that a great leader, an Arthur-figure, did
indeed exist.

(As an aside, American Founding Father Thomas Jefferson,
being a student of the ancient languages, and a fan of Anglo-Saxon history, had
once considered placing the mercenary Anglo-Saxon leaders Hengest and Horsa on
the U.S seal.)

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Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

Enter, Western Michigan University's Medieval Institute!

The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

General listing: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medievalpress/
Index of titles available for purchase: http://www.wmich.edu/medievalpublications/all-titles
The 'Medieval Globe' book(s): http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/ (Click on title(s) for free download)

Okay, that is all for now. Sometime soon I think that I would like to organize all of my resource links so that I, as well as you, have a concrete listing of reliable resources. Until then, we shall have to make due.